Legend
by Louise24601
Summary: When Killian picks up a young hitchhiker on the side of the road, seventeen-year-old runaway Emma, he can't know what a strange and magic ride he's in for. AU. Road trip. One shot. Warnings: swearing, mention of mature themes.


1

Her eyes were really what gave it away.

Average-brown eyes that only a certain depth could make exceptional.

Old eyes, Killian liked to think – was a man who believed in old souls. Had been one himself.

"Where to?" He threw the question with an unpracticed blend of casual and friendly.

A five-second appraisal of her was enough for Killian to tell she was the sort of girl who'd been warned about excessive attention from men when she was out hitchhiking – whose parents had probably tried to convince her to keep away from the practice altogether.

Yet again.

The girl wouldn't be here if listening to mom and dad was a cultivated habit.

"Anywhere," she answered, unceremoniously. "As far as you'll take me."

Words now, and a sweet, young voice to match the runaway look in her eyes.

And a face, Killian thought, white as milk – the milk that comes in cartons where they print the faces of missing kids.

2

There was no need for cautious deliberation before Killian decided to give the girl a ride. Quiet as a picture, though not quite shy, she sat silent in the seat next to his, hands gathered in her lap, fingers clenching and unclenching.

"You want me to turn the heat up?"

"I'm fine."

None of this politeness that lead well-bred girls to suffer in silence.

The girl's coat looked expensive enough – and Killian couldn't see much of her clothes beside the coat, zipped up to her chin, covering down to her thighs; sober black wool, and a fur-lined hood that had given her face a peculiarly adult frame when he'd first glimpsed it. Still, Killian waved off the first clichéd theory that entered his mind.

_Poor little rich kid looking to see the world_.

No.

As he occasionally darted glances towards his passenger, Killian was quick to make educated guesses.

See how that lower lip held firm and defiant, even as steam blew from her lips when she breathed? This was a girl not brought up to docilely endure her suffering, but one who took pain on the way a professional fighter might when he steps in the ring.

Put people through hell, some will come out hating the pain while only a small portion will learn to take it – to _use_ it.

Oh, yes, Killian thought, without the shadow of a doubt.

Her eyes were what did it.

What told her story.

Average-brown that turned black when they planted their claws on you – firm, not letting go. Those gazes that turn the blood cold, the flesh to stone.

The girl's eyes didn't speak anger but _war_. Some old souls have long waged war on the whole world, and wouldn't know what else to do with you.

Why wouldn't have Killian wanted to take her?

It was a long way to Illinois. He could use some company.

True, the girl couldn't be older than seventeen. Her figure, quite possibly frail, was hard to make out under the woolen coat, but there were still faint traces of baby-softness in her hands and cheeks. It was all Killian could do to determine her age – whenever that burning gaze met his, adolescence became out of the question, her age as intangible and pointless as a smoke-mirage in a magic show, like she was not a girl at all but a bright fragment of sheer fancy.

Urban legends about fair girls roaming alone, on the side of the road –

Killian reached for the heater regardless and turned it all the way up. Superstition had been deeply ingrained in his family home, but he'd managed to dodge the bullet, thank heaven, and didn't plan on having a change of heart in the near future.

"So, what's your name?"

"Emma."

Unhesitating, but a sharp enough stop that he knew she'd left out her family name deliberately.

"Emma," he repeated. "And you're from –"

"Indiana."

Killian's skin prickled at the lie. The girl had been on the road far longer than that.

"Uh-huh." After a short while. "I'm stopping at Springfield."

He didn't ask was that all right. The way her features relaxed, he could tell all she'd been aiming for was a big city – at enough distance from wherever she was running.

Killian wasn't the sort of guy to turn her in to the police. Wouldn't have thought of it if '_Runaway'_ had been tattooed on her forehead.

Free will was a key principle to him. Why should the government decide what was old enough to know your own mind?

For a few hours, they rolled in silence. In his own hitchhiking days, Killian had nursed a special hate for people who felt obligated to make conversation. Driving was usually a fond hobby of his, still he caught his thoughts wandering away from the road – shouldn't have taken the highway, for sure.

He'd decided on it some twenty minutes after taking the girl in.

By rule, Killian much preferred small, wood-embraced routes that gave you a more authentic feeling of America. Oh, the Romantics who doted on their countries' wilderness a couple centuries back would have choked on their morning oatmeal for sure if they'd seen those endless stretches of tarmac going on for thousands of miles, violating virgin beauty. Killian wasn't an adept of those sweetened views of nature, found it presumptuous to act like the land were a helpless woman (offensive to women, probably) and not a wild, breathing-and-roaring piece of mystery, inhospitable if it wanted to be, not there to unresistingly give way and be shaped by the invader's hand.

But Jesus, how the highway bored him. Ten hours driving country roads wasn't half as likely to get him drowsy as a couple spent on that straight, unvarying track.

If it weren't for the girl, quiet as a picture at his side, he wouldn't have done it.

Just wanted to spare her the sleeping anxiety – which had to be there, lurking in a corner, however hard she fought it – of small, deserted roads, with a man she didn't know. Didn't want to watch the fears come alive in her brain every time he slowed down (_oh God he'll stop and he'll pull out a gun and lock all the doors and those woods so perfect to bury me after he's raped and killed me_).

News programs were tragically devoid of hitchhiking stories that ended up well for young women.

Another interminable hour passed – or rather _rolled_ – by before Killian felt he was hungry. Last night was spent at a motel, but not the kind where you found a minty chocolate on your pillow, and let alone one where you could get yourself any breakfast worth better than skipping your meal altogether.

"I'm going to stop at the next station," he told the girl.

"Okay."

"For food."

"Okay."

Killian twisted his tongue inside his mouth, wanting to ask was she hungry, but in the end, thought better of it.

Such determination in her square jaw and resolute stare hinted she'd been willing to go hungry, anyway, when she'd put on that nice coat of hers, filled up the plump backpack that currently lay forgotten on the backseat, looking a little like a black beetle on its back that had eaten itself to death.

He took the next exit and parked in front of a faded-beige service station, not the worst Killian had ever seen – Lord knew, he'd driven by such stores you wouldn't even want to rob. The building, reasonably shabby, conveyed a mild image of the manager screwing his employees in the backroom, of expired food, cookies that crumble into pieces when you tear open the pack.

"For Christ's sake." Killian muttered as he stepped in, glancing at the blinking neon lights on the ceiling.

_It's the girl_, an absurd voice whispered to him. _She's bringing bad luck_.

Coated in the black-eyed glow of superstition.

"Old habits die hard, eh?" He thought to himself, and that he'd be quick and not the least bit fussy about the food – just careful enough that he didn't get intoxicated. That meant nothing fresh, so he didn't even cast an eye towards the line of refrigerated sandwiches.

Emma had wanted to stay in the car and declined going to the bathroom. Good instincts, probably. When Killian saw the faint coat of grime on the tile floor, leading to the private areas, it was plain he wouldn't have liked to see the girl go in there alone.

Who knows _what_ she would have stumbled upon? Needles in the bin? Not the mention the sort of individual she might have seen there – oh, Killian knew, gas station bathrooms were the setting for most peculiar meetings.

The cashier was an effaced boy much aware of the ambient bleakness. Before Killian made it to the checkout, he was absently popping pimples on his bangs-covered forehead.

"Howdyada."

Looking not at Killian or his purchases, even as he bagged them, but somehow, at nothing in particular.

Jeez Louise.

Roads weren't always decent places. (_And almost always bad places for kids_).

Killian shook himself up, like the remorse would glide down his shoulders without a struggle.

_Nothing to be _remorseful_ about, anyway_.

And yet, Killian's eyes lingered on the motley placards hanging on the wall behind the cashier, waiting to catch his young passenger's face above grave capital letters, MISSING, If you've seen our daughter please dial 06 66 66 66 66.

Killian's grandmother would have started even at the thought of that imagined phone number.

A smile – no deviousness here, if anything, fond nostalgia – made its way up Killian's cheeks, as he pictured her fending off the evil eye.

Killian stepped out of the station, purchases in hand, and straightened his coat. The air was crisp on his fingers. When he'd left the girl in the car, he'd contemplated leaving the ignition on so it'd be it'd be warmer inside. But Killian hadn't found himself on the good side of trust very often. Nothing about the girl's face – especially those abyss eyes that ate at your soul – could comfort Killian into the thought that she wouldn't have it in her to disappear with his car and drive her own self to wherever.

Whether she'd picked up that slight hesitation, the split-second pause when his fingers lingered on the car keys, Killian didn't know.

There was no resent at the implied mistrust on the girl's face when he returned. Or, if so, buried in a very deep pit inside her, the sort you have to work at, that needs years and years of patient digging, one inch after the other.

Killian sat back at the wheel, the paper bag in his lap. Inside, the candy bars shimmered brightly at him, KitKat-red, Reese-orange, and a bright sunny (Oh Henry!) yellow.

That's only around the time it struck Killian what a grey day he was having. No rain, too cold for rain, anyway, but the atmosphere was charged like the sky was harboring one hell of a shitstorm and trying to act casual, a kid shrugging innocently at the police officer even as his hands are buried deep in pockets full of stolen goods.

Killian grabbed a couple of candy bars for himself, another pair for the girl, then tossed the bag in the backseat.

Without a word, but making direct eye contact, he handed the chocolate bars over to her.

It was better like this. Waving off an offer is easy – _No, thanks_ are gold to polite people – but accepting something that's being thrust your way is just as much the cordial thing to do.

Sure enough, she looked back at him with quick startle – _no_. Killian corrected himself. Caution.

"I'm fine," she said.

What a proper way for her to decline.

A raw feeling of annoyance stabbed into Killian's chest, and now, _he_ was startled. "You can save them for later."

Had he just said that?

What an idiot.

For all he knew – for all she'd _told_ him – the girl could be on her way to see some friends, hitchhiking as a way to cut her expenses short, and not because it left fewer traces than taking the train.

"I've got my own," she replied.

By then, Killian was ready to admit defeat and stuffed the candy bars in the glovebox next to her.

3

It was some time before she decided she wanted to make conversation. Just like that. Warnings off. The way cats change their minds, suddenly jump from the top shelf to your lap and sink in, one paw after the other, leaving it to your best guesses whether they're going to pull out their claws.

Where was _he_ from?

What was he going to Springfield for?

How old was he, anyway, what did he do for a living?

Never would it have been easier for Killian to tell a girl lies – he'd told many before. Liked a good story as much as any guy, and sometimes indulged in telling them himself. His favorites were those that were set at sea – _Oh, me? I've spent my childhood on a schooner. Yes, really. Daddy was a sea-lover (_a little fond-nostalgic chuckle here_), actually got me to believe the sea was my mother, which made a little bit of sense. He just didn't seem to love anything else_.

The awed interest on the peach-faces of women who listened to his storytelling fed the sparks in Killian's own heart. The daily drudgery of work was such a grey, smothering cloak, gave his surroundings a bland look. Killian sometimes felt he was only ever _alive_ when he told lies. Like a red glow of embers in a bed of ash.

He thought of devising some colorful invention for Emma. Most likely, he'd enjoy seeing her eyes brimming with wonders and attention, more than he had any other woman. But when he opened his mouth, he couldn't shake the thought that any lie would receive a cold greeting from her old gaze, would crash against the midnight-blackness of her inner walls and come back to him crawling like a wounded dog.

"It's a boring job," he said. "A desk job." Like that would cut her off from wanting to know any more.

"In some kind a firm?"

"That's right."

There was no need for her to ask what it consisted in. Desk jobs, regardless of their nature, always more or less come down to answering the phone, writing emails and going over documents which much-more-important people than you will then review. The level of dignity you're entitled depends on whether or not the more trivial tasks include making coffee.

And _voilà_.

Nothing that would add any harmless fun to their road trip.

"So, you're going to Springfield on business."

"Yeah."

Killian realized as he answered it hadn't sounded like a question; and most strangers, _young_ strangers especially, made God-near everything sound interrogative, a tell-tale habit that betrayed their newness in life, like the wide world in itself was nothing short of a queer question mark, a joke with no punch line – or maybe the other way round.

But the girl – _Emma_ – was the question mark, as far as he was concerned. Had that strange air about her, something Killian's elderly family members would have called _supernatural_.

The way those eyes looked at you, drawing from the depths of the earth – like she could put a whole nation to its knees.

_Magic_ must have eyes like Emma's.

Not death – however grave and black – because death was only a natural, explicable phenomenon. Suddenly, Emma became the face of all things occult, things he had never before today looked on with awe. Girls who had made the mistake of following goblin-men, who'd eaten their food and entered the faery world.

How could you expect to tell entertaining lies to such a girl?

"What about you?"

Some strange force drew the words from his mouth. There was no reason to pester her about things like that, to make _her_ lie to him.

Yet Killian felt compelled to it – to prod the ice carapace around her, with the gentle care of a stone carver, to watch it crack and shatter.

Whether it was right or wrong was irrelevant.

Emma's eyes didn't cower.

It was their very unwaveringness that prompted Killian to realize he wasn't looking at the road – nothing but straight lines, and he could probably roll down the highway in his sleep, but still.

The sight of tarmac and rolling vehicles was like a dream, now, after staring at the faery-girl for so long.

"It's business, also." She said. "I'm going to find work. Meet the right people."

Your classic case of a young adult trying to catch the fast-rolling train of the American dream. The best things in America, culture told you, were self-made.

So, that's what she was passing for.

Killian nodded. Knew he shouldn't insist and realized with some sort of helpless distance, like he was both actor and spectator, that he would.

"You got any line of work in mind?"

"There's a lot I know how to do."

That wasn't exactly the same thing. But before Killian could think to point that out, or say anything else, he made himself cut the conversation short, "Yeah, okay."

It was a few hours still to Springfield, and for what was left of the trip, Killian decided silence would be best.

When you'd grown to wear cynicism like a fitting black coat, the way Killian had, you naturally revoked your right to be curious about the mysteries of life. It was harder discard that coat than it might sound.

More and more greyness stretched on before him (_God, I hate the highway_), a kind of modern sketch of infinity. Killian thought of the Romantics again who marveled at the boundless wilderness of their country.

Every now and then, a flash of golden hair drew his eye, beaming with unearthly appeal, but he fought the urge to look.

Maybe the girl, like him, hated the highway.

Maybe she would have preferred the awing vastity of the woods, where everything has a story – where every shape and shadow hints at greater depths, where the world is unfit for human habitation. Where inhuman things unfold.

Killian really didn't believe in superstitions.

But he _liked_ to believe, when he drove past the tremendous forests of America's landscape, that they sheltered fantastic fairytale creatures.

Wolves that walked on two legs. Bewitched girls with hair blond as wheat who had pricked their finger on a cursed thorn and were in for a hundred years of sleep.

Just then, Killian had a strong, very strange feeling, that had nothing to do with a sameness of mind between the girl and him. It was more of a striking complementarity.

Like an art-lover who browses the pages of a magazine and unexpectedly stumbles upon art.

(Or a story-lover who takes in a young hitchhiker and talks with her a while before he realizes she's legend).

4

He never knew what had brought the girl to leave home, what she had been doing on the side of the road that precise day, had made it so she was standing at that crossroads precisely when he drove through.

But hers weren't the only reasons.

Why did his foot hit the brake pedal? There was no car following him closely enough that his sudden stop would have been a bother. Maybe, if that had been the case, he would have just driven on, and watched as the girl's haunted eyes stared at him in the rearview mirror.

_Sorry, lass_. _Maybe next time_.

But Killian was positive there would have been no next time, that for this girl to be sitting next to him today was like when you took a wrong turn and inadvertently put your foot in the fourth dimension. One of those things that would feel like a dream, even just a few hours after he'd dropped her off.

"Anywhere special?" He asked. First to engage talk since he'd set his mind on ignoring her and that witch-air about her.

Now, they were reaching Springfield, and there was little time to spare.

"Anywhere will do."

Those answers that are of no help. People who can make it on their own don't _need_ your help – even when they occasionally need a ride to some big city, so they can have their own shot at the pursuit of happiness.

Killian wasn't bitter although he could but realize he'd long left that dream-built track.

So, he drove around a while.

Drove past his own hotel without peeping, started circling around the city center – fittest place to leave a girl, however resourceful she was – but he told himself he couldn't find quite the right spot.

Beside him, Emma's silence was stone, unembarrassed.

Was he delaying the moment when she'd grab her backpack, open that door and disappear out of his unexciting life, with her expensive black coat, fast becoming a mere shadow in the crowd?

Killian had never asked himself if he'd gotten where he was today by missing out on something (the sort of something that best remains unnamed). A desk job is never the dream for anybody, but to Killian, it was better than underpaid undeclared hours or much more lucrative illegal activities.

He never had second thoughts. Killian wasn't one to dwell on reasons why or what ifs.

But then there was this girl, golden-haired and pale and petrifying, who had that mystical feel to her, inexplicable magic.

Maybe it was just that Killian liked stories, liked them more than damn-near anything, and his pulse was racing, his brain set on convincing himself he wasn't closing the door on what could be a wonderful story… The sort that changes a life.

"This will do." Emma's voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

Without resistance, he stopped the car near the sidewalk, where a cluster of youths walked them by, a half-eaten box of popcorn in their hands, the grin up their cheeks hideous, sincere, incomparably _young_.

_What are they?_ Killian wondered. _Sixteen, seventeen?_

Not much younger than the girl. He himself was barely twenty-five, had been their age not so long ago, but it struck him as something extinct.

And when he looked into the girl's eyes – he did, right after he stopped the car – he saw again that unspeakable agelessness about her, like she was just a fragment of wonder, out of space and time, defying the laws of nature.

"Thank you for the ride."

"It was my pleasure."

In a flash of blond hair, she was reaching for her bag in the backseat and opening the door.

"Emma."

She turned to him, caught in her haste, and it filled Killian's throat with awe. Like having a hurricane suddenly pause and look at you.

It struck Killian how beautiful the girl was.

Young, _too_ young, but she was going to make one hell of a woman.

Then, for a second, Killian was under the ridiculous impression he was going to open his mouth and say, 'Come back. Let's go on.' The surprise on her white face would look frightful, would put the spotlights straight on the absurdity of his request. 'For a while longer,' he would add. 'We can get further than that. A lot further. It doesn't have to be Springfield.' It didn't. If they could ride across the state of Illinois together, they could ride across the country – no highways this time. Houston. Philadelphia. Los Angeles. 'Let us run away together and never ask ourselves why we did it. Why not, Emma?'

The silence between them was getting warmer, Killian felt, with those words he wasn't speaking.

_Here I go again. Telling stories to myself_.

Pragmatic enough, Killian pulled a notebook out of his coat's inner pocket – even amateur storytellers who haven't written a page in their life still carry notebooks with them, as a rule – ripped a page, and wrote down his name and phone number.

"Here."

He handed the sheet over and fought the discomfort that crept in, as he sat there with his arm extended over the stick shift. The girl's breaths blew raw exposure at him. Her black-murderous eyes silent. It flashed through his brain that this was just like the candy bar he'd tried to give her earlier, and she would wave it away with the same ease, 'No thanks. I've already got my own name and phone number.'

But she just stared cautiously at him.

"I'm not going to call the authorities," he said, maybe so that thought would be out and done with. Maybe just as an attempt to break the wall between them. Immediately, he regretted it, when her eyes turned bright with anger. "You're entitled to your own secrets," he said, in the wrong again. He should know better than to placate her. "And your life, and your freedom. Just don't let anyone – Jesus Christ."

Killian pressed a fist to his forehead. Now, he actually sounded paternalistic.

"Just take this." He gave it a final try. "So if there's ever anything you need, you can call me."

It was a moment before the girl showed any sort of a reaction.

_Not in the putting-them-out-of-their-misery business, love, are you?_

"You mean," she said, "like a ride?"

"Yeah. Like a ride."

The piece of paper was so moist between his fingers, he was afraid it would tear when the girl finally picked it up – plucked it between her index and thumb and inspected it for a moment.

Killian watched as she discovered his name; realized she hadn't asked for it before.

Then there was a bit of a hustle out there – the big city claiming everyone's attention – a dull _thump _as someone bumped against the car door, and Killian felt how ridiculous it was to wish for this sheltered interlude from the real world to last any longer.

Emma opened the door and slid through – swiftly enough, but she didn't just vanish like an elfin spirit. Killian could actually watch her for a while, making her way through the crowd.

The sheet of paper with his name and number was crumpled in her fist.

She might have thrown it in the first bin she saw, she might have put it in her pocket and forgotten completely about it, but she did neither.

She just kept it there, safe in the palm of her hand.

_Like a secret_, Killian thought, before he resumed a pragmatic attitude.

"Well, that's that." To the unresponsive atmosphere of his empty car. "I'll bet you anything you like I'll never hear from that girl again."

No one in his immediate surroundings seemed willing to take him on.

Killian began musing again. "Except maybe out of the pages of a fairytale book…"

He started the car again.

By the time he got to his hotel and dropped on the bed, feeling stiffer than a corpse, aching in his back and neck, Killian's mind had long regained its usual sense.

But when he closed his eyes, before he could help it, he was running through a tangle of gargantuan trees, beating his way through the thorns, following the cold compelling voice of some faraway region.

Tomorrow, Killian would meet with his boss's associates and go over a bunch of boring things.

Tonight, and many nights after this, his mind was steered towards the girl, _Emma_, and Killian dreamt of magic.

…

**AN**: This is probably the least Hook/Emma story I've ever written, but I felt the whole story had a fairytale feel to it that just fit the characters so well. Please share your thoughts and reactions.


End file.
